Rise and Decline: Dover and Deal in the Nineteenth Century
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http://kentarchaeology.org.uk/research/archaeologia-cantiana/ Kent Archaeological Society is a registered charity number 223382 © 2017 Kent Archaeological Society RISE AND DECLINE: DOVER AND DEAL IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY1 By JOHN WHY, B.So.(EcioN.) INTRODUCTION TEas article, in two parts, sets out to show the kind of historical picture of the development of two towns that can be built up from historical sources that are readily accessible and easy to handle, but it does not pretend to offer a complete history of Dover and Deal in the nineteenth century nor does it cover by any means all the topics and events which might be considered relevant. The nineteenth century is fairly rich in documentary and topo- graphical sources bearing on local history.. Those put to use in this analysis include contemporary guides and topographies, directories, census returns, Select Committee parliamentary evidence, letters and diaries, and newspapers both Kentish and national. There is in this list a heavy concentration on secondary and printed sources which on account of their modern English are simple to work from. In this article I have attempted to give a practical, modern and relevant approach to the study of local urban history. Towns were as much living communities in the nineteenth century as they are today, as places where people, rich and poor, live, work, sleep, eat, travel and enjoy themselves. The description 'antiquarian is justly attached to much of the urban history writing of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, where we find a chronology of buildings, institu- tions and remarkable events, most of it medieval, and arranged and organized haphazardly. Dover and Deal were communities rather than places and they consisted of people and not just buildings in the nineteenth century. Concern with people individually or in the mass, and irrespective of rank or wealth, establishes the main feature of economic and social history which is to trace the story of the activities and well-being of men and women in the street at time intervals in the past, and it is perhaps one of the pleasures of the modern historian to be able to know more about a place and its community from the records that survive than a contemporary living at the time knew of his own locality. 1 I express my grateful thanks to Professor T. C. Barker, Professor of Econo- mic and Social History at the University of Kent, for his valuable comments and suggestions for improving the original manuscript. • 107 DOVER AND DEAL IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY It is relevant to this article to stress that towns historically have never existed and prospered in a vacuum. Nineteenth-century Dover and Deal were part of a much wider political, social and economic environment, their evolution aiding and being influenced by develop- ments in the county, in the nation, or even from overseas. It is scarcely necessary to point out that this observation had particular relevance to Dover's long-established function as a cross-Channel link on the routes between London and Paris or London and Brussels. Commercial contacts between Dover and the Continent expanded appreciably during the nineteenth century. Dover both as a port and town was as much influenced by happenings on the Continent as by events and policies in London. Two press comments within a decade of one another illustrate very well the effects of continental influences, the first occurring in June 1861 when the South Eastern Gazette observed of the Cobden Treaty and Dover: 'The recent treaty between France and England seems to have created a considerable amount of extra business. The number of commercial travellers visiting Dover on transit to and from the continent is stated never to have been so large as at the present time. The international treaty does not, consequently, appear to be a dead letter.'2 The somewhat different effects of the Franco-Prussian War were reported in July 1870 in the same newspaper thus: 'From the unusually heavy freights of our continental steamers since the declaration of war, it would appear that our countrymen in France are in a hurry to return home.'3 Much of the history of Dover and Deal is explicable in terms of their geographical position: Dover forming the nearest point to the Conti- nent and Deal standing as the port immediately serving the famous international shipping route known as the Downs, that stretch of water situated between the North and South Forelands. The national background to the economic and social development of Dover and Deal in the nineteenth century was one of change. There were many well-known and notable advances which to some extent were reflected in the history of these, as of other towns, in this period: for instance, parliamentary and local government reform; rapid population growth and marked urbanization; developments in piped water, piped gas, improved drainage and sanitation and, at the end of the century, the early days of electricity supply; an expansion of private and voluntary education at all levels; more advanced tech- 2 The South. Eastern Gazette, 18th June, 1861, 4f. Ibid., 18th July, 1870, Oa. 108 DOVER AND DEAL IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY niques in harbour construction; far-reaching advances in communica- tions, in fast coaching, trams and omnibuses as additions to urban transport and in railways, steam shipping, and not least the telegraph. These advances do not exhaust the possible list, but among them improvements in transport were decisive in strengthening Dover's position as a cross-Channel port. Thus, one tremendously significant development of the first half of the nineteenth century came in the 1S20s when steamships began to ply to and from Dover.4 Subsequently, coach/steamer communication was replaced by railway/steamer communication, and any contemporary living through this period would have marvelled at the great advances in transport which had occurred. Mackenzie Walcott, in A Guide to the Coast of Kent (1859) observed that: Ty the South Eastern Railway, the journey from London is a mere matter of two hours—swift steamers connect with the trains.'6 Walcott also wrote of another great advance in the submarine telegraph, the first line of electric cable being laid down between London and Cap Gris Nez in August 1850.6 By 1874, Dover was famous as a 'great telegraph station', the Submarine Telegraph Company's steamer, the Lady Carmichael, standing ready at hand to repair any of their cables in the Channel or North Sea.7 The importance and general functions of these two towns as they appear in The Municipal Corporations Companion, Diary, Directory, and Year Book of Statistics for 1879 were as follows: DOVER—A parliamentary and municipal borough, market town, and poor law union of 23 parishes; a seaport and steam packet station, the Royal Mail Route to the Continent proceeding via Dover and Calais and Dover and Ostend and by virtue of being the nearest landing place from the Conti- nent, having, therefore, from the earliest period been a place of some importance on this account; a terminal station of the South Eastern and London, Chatham and Dover Railways, and one of the Cinque Ports.' DEAL —A municipal borough of East Kent, included in the parlia- mentary representation of Sandwich; market town; parish; seaport; pilot and coastguard station; member of the Cinque Port of Sandwich. The terminal station of a branch line on the South Eastern Railway.' Mackenzie Walcott, A Guide to the Coast of Kent (1859), 7. 5 Ibid., 85. 6 Ibid., 89. 7 The Post Office Directory of the Six Home Counties (1874), ii, 1236. 8 (Ed.) J. R. Somers Vine, The Municipal Corporations Companion, Diary, Directory, and Year Book of Statistics for 1879 (1879), 130. ° Ibid., 120. 109 DOVER AND DEAL IN TAR NINETEENTH CENTURY Until the Redistribution of Seats Act, 1885,10 Dover in common with the Parliamentary Boroughs of Canterbury, Rochester and Maid- stone,11 returned two Members to Parliament, but in each of these towns, under that Act, the parliamentary representation was reduced to one member,12 when for the first time seats were allotted on a basis of population, the medieval idea of the representation of communities being abandoned.1-8 The 1832 Reform Act united Walmer to Deal, and these places, in conjunction with Sandwich, returned Members to the House of Commons.14 Deal was annexed to the Cinque Ports soon after the Conquest.18 Like Canterbury, Sandwich, Rochester, Faversham, Tenterden, Maidstone and Gravesend, Deal and Dover at the beginning of the nineteenth century stood among the old-established towns which were municipal boroughs; that is, they had been granted a charter by the Crown giving them special privileges, and their chief burgess was known by the title of mayor.18 Deal, after strenuous opposition from Sand-M*17 was incorporated by Charter in 1699 by William III with a mayor, 12 jurats and a council of 24, the jurats acting as magis- trates separate from the county justices.18 The Corporation of Deal in 1879 consisted of a mayor, 6 aldermen and 18 councillors, and the borough, which embraced Upper and Lower Deal, Walmer, Sholden and Great and Little Mongeham, had a commission of the peace, with quarter sessions, and the Corporation also was the urban sanitary authority.10 Parishes with a population of more than 5,000 became sanitary authorities under the Public Health Acts of 1872 and 1875.20 Municipal government in Dover in 1879 existed in a corporation com- posed of a mayor, 6 aldermen and 18 councillors, who represented three wards—Castle, Town and Pier21—and the Corporation, as in Deal, acted as the urban sanitary authority.22 The following officers were employed by the two Corporations, and were paid salaries or fees: 1 48 and 49 Viet.